The idea behind Dream eXplorer

I am recording my dreams for quite some time now. At first, there was a classical dreamers’ dilemma – what can I do to increase my dream recall and remember my nightly adventures? At times I wasn’t able to remember more than a detail or two from moments before awakening and this was a frustration… I tried everything and anything that crossed my path – from dream herbs and dream enhancers, crystals, meditation, (instant) recapitulation, tapping (EFT) etc. Some things helped, others didn’t. But that didn’t discourage me; I kept writing everything I could remember upon each awakening and it paid off. In a long run, that is.

With practice (and time) dream diaries started to pile up. At that point I was faced with another problem – what to do with all the dreams I wrote down? Searching for dream signs in so many diaries became next to impossible so I had to find another solution. I decided to transfer them to a computer so I can use “search engines” to look for specific recurring elements at a later time. Said-done. It took me nearly three months to type hundreds of dreams into a single document. Everything looked great at first – I could create an index of all dreams, I could use different colors and fonts to differentiate different dream categories and dream signs. Everything seemed great… until the file exceeded 1000 pages. Then, problems re-appeared. First, it took forever for the file to load. Then it started crashing after I executed a search for specific keyword. And I was back to square one. I started looking for a different solution. After a long internet search I discovered that there is actually no product to meet my needs and I was left with no other option then to dig myself into it and come up with something worthwhile.

Since I’m a little familiar with VB Net programming, I decided to give it a try and create something myself. I took MS Access as the basis and started building a database to transfer my dream diaries to. As before, it worked like a charm at first – I created the database, some entry forms and reports and everything looked pretty neat. My problem with entering dreams was solved. Or so it seemed. When I started “coding” (copy/pasting the code that I needed from various sources) everything started to fall apart, again.

And the idea about actual dream recording/analyzing software was born…

“The first step to dream practice is quite simple: one must recognize the great potential that dream holds for the spiritual journey. Normally, the dream is thought to be ‘unreal,’ as opposed to ‘real’ waking life. But there is nothing more real than dream. This statement only makes sense once it is understood that normal waking life is as unreal as dream, and in exactly the same. way.” — Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep

Unless we are Yogis or Yoginis, the closest we are likely to come to an inciteful appreciation of Emptiness and the true nature of phenomenon might actually be our dreams. The conflicted “daytime” mind — so wound up in our worries, stresses, and fears — is as difficult to tame as a wild horse that h...

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